


Into My Arms

by LadyMaigrey



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Growing Old Together, Song Lyrics, a bit of angst cause some of it is from Matt's POV and he is Just Like That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28475853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMaigrey/pseuds/LadyMaigrey
Summary: It's not always clear where a path begins, even less certain where it ends. The only surety for Matt is that he wants to walk it with Karen.This fic is partner in style forThe Threads of Good Things
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Karen Page
Comments: 19
Kudos: 24
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	Into My Arms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [josiesbar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiesbar/gifts).



> A ludicrously-late DD Exchange Gift for josiesbar, using her prompts "Memory" and "Matt, Foggy and/or Karen singing". So late - it's turned into a New Year's Gift. So, Happy New Year! :)
> 
> (Yes, I know there was a wonderful pinch-hitter who stepped into the void at the time, because I just couldn't get this finished in time for various reasons. But, also, I am very stubborn.)
> 
> Title and lyrics from Nick Cave's "Into My Arms"

“Lights on, please. Not too bright, though.”

The downlights flickered, dimmed, diffused into a cool shower of blue-tinged shadows, easy on her tired eyes. She really needed to get to the optometrist, get her current prescription checked, new glasses ordered. Maybe go through the motions of considering laser surgery yet again, just for her vanity’s sake. She would dismiss it though, simply because she couldn’t be bothered that much. Matt wouldn’t question her either way. He’d just smile. Maybe brush his fingers up her cheek and along the delicate earpiece nestling against her temple. Maybe he’d joke that she looked the same to him, as she always had, with or without her glasses. She would roll her eyes behind the lenses and shoot back that she deserved at least one new pair for every two that he broke or lost over the years. In the end, this problem would be tossed with all the other petty flotsam that gathered in their wake as they swam or sputtered their way along the turbulence that was their life.

Maybe that’s why they never really moved out of Matt’s loft apartment, even though it was now far less than practical. It was still a walk up (and seemed to acquire more steps every year), it was still run-down (and getting more so every winter), it was still a rental (though the lease was, effectively, permanent - one of the few perks of being Hell’s Kitchen legal defender that Matt permitted himself to accept).

 _Speaking of Matt, where was he?_ Karen wondered.

There was an easy idleness to her thoughts, though. None of the heart-stuttering anxiety that plagued her for the decades of Matt defending the neighbourhood with his blood and skin.

It’s also been a while since her guts tangled at the thought of losing Matt to the quicksand of depression. Last time was nearly eight years ago, and it nearly swallowed him whole. That was when he broke his hip and realised that his time stalking though the shadows was over. The dissolution of one half of his identity battled Murdock’s legendary stubbornness, but Karen saw the hope born of experience reflected in Maggie’s still-sharp eyes. And she was right. Day by day, prayer by prayer (with a sizeable dose of modern medicine to assist it), Matt returned to the legal offices of Murdock and McDuffie and put the Devil to work on ripping holes in the agendas of any crook – underground or corporate – that dared to strongarm his city. 

No, Karen didn’t need worry. He was probably just tying up some loose ends on a case, or been hijacked for a drink at some hole-in-the-wall bar by his Honour, Justice Nelson of the Richmond County Criminal Court, and lost track of time.

She puttered about, throwing rice into the old-fashioned rice cooker, while considering adding a touch more spice to the bubbling stew in their new-fangled smart-as-a-trained-monkey slow-cooker, which Foggy and Marci gave them last Christmas. Matt would grumble if she did that, though. With age, his senses became finicky - even more so than normal (if ‘normal’ was a word that could be used to describe anything to do with Matt’s senses). His tolerance for extremes of tastes – not to mention for the poorer quality of take-out – decreased. Yet some of his perceptions dulled: his hearing, his ability to detect temperature variations, the shifts of air. He missed things now, and Karen was glad that neither she nor Foggy ever quite fell out of the habit to narrate their body-language.

Matt could still move with a preternatural ease around objects in his path, but distant sounds grew hazy in their origins and their meanings. For a while, Karen was afraid that this progressive loss would cause Matt to spiral again, and was surprised when Matt seemed freer instead, more content, his still-firm contours more relaxed when curving around her in the evenings. Eventually she figured it out (with none of his help, of course): the bond of responsibility for the pain of the city, which refused to release him even as his body could no longer confront it, finally began to dissolve into meaningless noise. He was free to tune out the cries. And, maybe, it was selfish of her to rejoice, but how could she not when, night after night, Matt slept deep and woke beside her with a smile.

She wandered into their bedroom, unzipping and kicking off the tailored battle garments of the Editor-in-Chief of the NY Bulletin, replacing them with the sweats and hoodie of a woman determined to appreciate every precious creature comfort her hectic life permitted. She wished she could scrub her brain from all the schedules, deadlines and upcoming fights with the board execs just as easily. Their preference for the easily-marketable politically-benign NutraSweet-laden pieces constantly threatened the funds for the endangered breed of journalism that used to be her bread and butter.

Her own days of sitting in cars for nights on end, stalking a lead, or sneaking into shady doorways to talk with shadier informants, were also long past. Years before Daredevil hung up his horns, she had accepted the desk job and grieved for the rush of the hunt, for the crack of bone and the spill of the guts of the story over the front page. Her own demons raged but failed against the Ellison’s cold logic: Mitch was retiring, and if she wanted to keep Ben Urich’s legacy alive beyond her own lifetime, she had to step into the EIC’s shoes. Needless to say, Foggy returned _all_ of the tongue-in-cheek shit she ever gave him for turning into a political animal, back when Foggy made his second run for the DA. But it was Matt’s crinkle-eyed smile and confident hand squeezing hers that cemented her certainty. She was making the right decision, not just for her, or Ellison, or Ben - but for Matt and for the city. Or, in Marci’s words, for the _enfant terrible_ that they had adopted (and who knew whether she meant Hell’s Kitchen, or Matt Murdock).

For now, the day was over, the evening wrestled away from the pinging of her e-mail and video-alerts. Her fingers skimmed the gloss wood of a six-string acoustic guitar, nestled in its stand against a wall.

“Music would be nice,” she said the listening air.

The silence that greeted her did not put her off – the Home-Smart system was simply waiting for her specific preferences without responding. Even though Matt relied more than most on the sound of an electronic voice at work, he refused to have it piping up in his home like some unholy ghost.

“Actually, no.” Her hand lingered, grasped the guitar’s neck, lifted. “Might as well take advantage of the absence of the sensitive ears, while I get the rust out of my fingers.”

Karen settled on the edge of the bed, tucking one leg under her, balanced the golden wood on her thigh and touched the strings.

* * *

The ringing sound of the A string weaved through the evening’s pedestrian bustle into Matt’s ears. By the time the front door of the walkup swung shut behind him, he was fully focused on the harmonics, punctuated by the smidgen-off-key E string. The ever-scathing corner of his brain informed him that the foolish grin he wore was entirely inappropriate for a distinguished attorney, but, after decades of practice, Matt was finally adept at telling it to shut the fuck up.

Half-way up the stairs, he heard three solemn chords that made him forget the pain in the frayed cartilage of his knees, the ever-present grating within his hip, the indent in his palm from leaning his weight on his reinforced and sturdy cane.

He was no longer on the musty staircase within the bowels of an old brick building. Instead, he was crouching on a rickety fire-escape landing, drinking in these illicit sounds from beyond the window. This was his ritual at the beginning of the night’s hunt, the moment of peace and blessing stolen and tucked away in a corner of his soul that stubbornly held soft things. He didn’t mean for this eavesdropping to become a habit, to parasite himself on Karen’s private hobby, but the Devil was a creature of instinct and lust. It led him along the roofs, towards violence or serenity, on a thread woven by his senses, bereft of consciousness.

The first time he followed the strands of music to Karen’s roof was about six months after the napkin inauguration of Nelson, Murdock and Page. He belatedly justified it to himself as simple concern for her, after a stress-ridden week. Once he realised that Karen was the owner of the fingertips whispering over the guitar’s fretboard, fumbling with a beginner’s uncertainty, he told himself that that this was a one-time intrusion on her privacy. He did enough of that within the office when he listened to the catch of her breath, the steady rhythm of her heart, her blood rushing beneath his hand resting on the crook of her elbow.

The Devil overrode his best laid plans and intentions, as it always had. The sound of the metal strings catching against her skin never failed to ping his senses. When her voice joined the guitar, the lure was irresistible (and woe be to any thug whose life choices caused Matt to tarry).

And so, he crouched outside her window, on a grate of metal, his skin prickling at the words flowing from behind the three chords.

_I don’t believe in an interventionist God,_

_But I know, darling, that you do._

_And, if I did, I would kneel down and ask Him_

_Not to intervene when it came to you._

And wasn’t that just the opposite of everything he has ever been taught by Stick, by the Church? Even his Dad? _Good enough_ was an anathema to the memory of those who died for him. Or, because of him. He had to be better, he had to be different, to change, to change, to change… To drive out the Devil, or hide the Devil, or harness the Devil in the name of God. Pray that his inability to do so was a sign of God’s Will not of Matt’s weakness.

_Oh, not to touch a hair on your head,_

_Leave you as you are,_

_If He felt He had to direct you,_

_Direct you into my arms._

And he wasn’t stupid, he knew these words weren’t written for him, and they were sung not for him - but the metal creaked and groaned as the weight of his sudden longing dumped him down, not onto his knees, but on his ass. And he didn’t know what he longed for more, to hear these words or to utter them? His heart screamed out for both, while his selfishness twisted a knot in his stomach.

_I don’t believe in the existence of angels,_

_But looking at you I wonder if that’s true_

_And, if I did, I would summon them together_

_And ask them to watch over you._

And here was a prayer that he had spoken during the many introverted hours spent in the basement of the Clinton Church, in that private chapel sacred for all the misery and doubt he had endured within it. And he tried to take his need out of the supplication, but it was the memory of Karen’s scent and touch that made him beg God for the only safety he ever sought: safety for his friends, for his mother, for all the angels whom he still refused to believe in, but who stubbornly believed in him.

_But I believe in Love_

_And I know that you do, too_

_And I believe in some kind of path_

_That we can walk down, me and you._

And he didn’t deserve this. Not from the woman beyond the window, whose peace and privacy he was disturbing with his perverse snooping and maudlin thoughts. But, Lord, he wanted to believe in this possibility, with all the strength of his being, even if it made him pathetic. He certainly must have looked pathetic, sitting out on this collapsing nod to municipal safety, the cloth over his face wet and itchy, his nose now clogged from the overflow of tears. He even found himself imagining that the song would end with footsteps approaching the window, a voice inviting him inside, the scent from his prayers and sinful dreams enveloping him within the circle of her arms.

Of course, this wasn’t what happened. His life was not the sort of fertile ground that bloomed into a romantic comedy.

The ending chord’s ringing was abruptly cut off by her palm, and the instrument’s body echoed with finality as it was placed against the wall, its owner’s footsteps now moving away towards the bathroom. To stay longer was beyond inappropriate and encroached into unforgivable.

But, from that night on, he couldn’t help but seek some kind of path for them, one that reached beyond the morning coffees and evening beers with which they signposted their careful friendship. It didn’t matter how much he berated himself, how often he told himself that, if ever he was wanted, that time was lost in the rubble of his former life. Yet, he couldn’t think of his current life as anything but a rebirth, a second chance. And he couldn’t quite kill the hope that this undeserved fortune might give him a chance to prove to Karen, and to himself, that he wasn’t destined to ruin all the best things in his life.

So, with this in mind, conversation by conversation, between court hearings, on midnight stakeouts, leaning against greasy bars, or wielding pool cues, he carefully lit and set candles along this path, illuminating his deeds, listening to her thoughts, building trust mote by mote. One day, nearly choked by his love and fear and certitude that he needed to, at least, _try_ , he confessed to hearing her sing and asked her, “Do you believe?”

* * *

“Hey, you.” The door to 6A opened without him even having to dig for his keys. In fact, he wasn’t even sure how he got there (by the stairs, obviously, and with far less care than his fifty-seven-going-on-one-hundred year old body necessitated, judging by the thin spikes perforating his joints in tandem with his elevated pulse). Nor could he be certain how long he stood on the landing, lost in his memories. Long enough for Karen to stop playing and somehow detect his presence.

“Your hearing is spectacular. I was sure I didn’t make that much noise.” He grinned despite feeling the heat in his cheeks.

Karen’s giggle was muffled by her hand – a self-consciousness she still hasn’t quite broken herself out of. “You are still quiet as a ninja, love.” She tilted her head. “But, maybe, my sixth sense was telling me that you might be homing in on my once-in-a-blue-moon guitar-torture, like in the old days?”

“I loved those old days.” He stepped close, ducking in to meet her lips with his, catching the smell of worn leather clasped in her hand. “And I love your sixth sense. You are right, I was beguiled by your singing, helpless before it. I was in the office just a minute ago and had a crazy urge to be here. Are you a siren?”

His mock frown earned him the expected huff. “Now you are making fun of me. I suppose I deserved that, though.”

“Not at all.” He leaned in again, this time slowing down and indulging in the kiss, before brushing his fingers over the purse in her hand and adding, “I am simply in awe. Did your sixth sense also say you had to get something from the bodega across the road? If so, I would be happy to save you the effort, my siren.”

“Damn you. There goes all the mystery! Yes, I just remembered that we were out of wine. And now I can’t be bothered going, and I think you’ve done enough walking up and down stairs for one day too. Besides we still have beer.”

“Ow, from a ninja to an old man in three sentences!”

“Get in here!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the apartment. Matt went willingly, as he often did when she insisted on leading, having figured out long ago that trust was as much about letting go as holding on.

Karen, first, led him over to the fridge for a couple bottles of the aforementioned (imported, British) beverage, and then to the bedroom, where she picked up the guitar and re-settled on the edge of the bed, in a space already warmed by her body heat. Matt shucked his jacket before flopping down on his side behind her, picking at the label on the bottle, while Karen’s fingers wandered over the strings, pressing and releasing.

“Any requests?”

“Mmmm.”

“Well then, to the winding paths that somehow managed to lead us here.”

She picked up her beer off the nightstand and gently touched the glass against his, before taking a sip and placing it back. Her fingers shifted with a metallic whisper over the strings, and three chords filled the mellow comfortable space they created between them.

_So keep your candles burning,_

_Keep your journey bright and pure,_

_So you’ll keep returning always and evermore_

_Into my arms._

**Author's Note:**

> This was uncharacteristically fluffy, for me. 
> 
> Normal programming of whump, violence and/or smut will resume shortly. >:-)
> 
> Thank you for reading. Criticism welcome. Come talk to me at LadyMaigrey.tumblr.com


End file.
